Profile: Armando Spataro

Armando Spataro was a participant or observer in the following events:

Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr (a.k.a. Abu Omar) is temporarily released in Egypt, where he was taken by the CIA after being abducted (see Noon February 17, 2003). He makes a series of phone calls to family members and acquaintances in Milan, Italy, saying he was kidnapped, taken by English- and Italian-speaking men, put on a plane with a US flag on it, and held in prison for a year, but is now under house arrest. In one of the calls, Nasr tells his wife: “I was very close to dying. But I don’t think about death anymore.… I am deeply saddened because I wasn’t able to do what I had planned to do in Italy.” He says that he has been tortured—subjected to freezing temperatures and electric shocks, among other forms of abuse (see Late February 2003 or Shortly After). He also warns religious colleagues at the Islamic Cultural Center in Milan that his Egyptian interrogators want to abduct another three people. He is soon rearrested by the Egyptian authorities because of the calls. The calls are recorded by Italian investigators, who have had him under surveillance for some time. [Washington Post, 12/6/2005; GQ, 3/2007 ] Armando Spataro, an Italian prosecutor who had previously worked with the CIA on surveillance of Nasr in Milan, learns of the calls. As the CIA’s practice of rendition is well known, he is unsurprised the agency had played a role in the operation, and also feels Italian intelligence may have been involved. However, the first call the Italians intercept from Nasr in Egypt causes them to try to determine the exact circumstances of the kidnap. According to GQ magazine, Spataro considers the rendition a “national embarrassment” and a “clear violation of Italian sovereignty and law.” [GQ, 3/2007 ] Nasr will be released again in 2007 (see February 11, 2007).

Armando Spataro, the Italian prosecutor investigating the CIA’s rendition from Italy of Islamist extremist Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr (a.k.a. Abu Omar—see Noon February 17, 2003), offers a deal to Robert Seldon Lady, one of the agency officers involved in the operation. Spataro wants Lady to testify against the CIA for the prosecution. In return, Lady will not be sentenced to prison in Italy, and half of a villa he owns there will not be confiscated. However, Lady declines the offer, later saying that doing so would cause him to “lose respect for 24 years of my life”—the length of time he worked for the CIA. [GQ, 3/2007 ]

The Italian government says it will not ask for the extradition of 22 CIA officers sought by Italian prosecutors in connection with the kidnapping of radical imam Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr (a.k.a. Abu Omar, see Noon February 17, 2003 and June 23, 2005 and After). Approving such a request is “usually a formality” according to the Washington Post, but the decision is delayed for months and then finally made by Italian Justice Minister Roberto Castelli immediately after the government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi loses elections, but before it is replaced by a new government. The New York Times comments, “As minister of justice under Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi—one of the Bush administration’s most loyal supporters in Europe—Mr. Castelli’s refusal to move forward with the extradition comes as no surprise.” Prosecutor Armando Spataro says that the request will be resubmitted to the new Italian government, and the CIA officers may be tried in absentia. [Washington Post, 12/6/2005; New York Times, 4/12/2006] The request is resubmitted, but by the time the CIA officers are committed for trial in 2007, the new government will not have passed it on to the US (see February 11, 2007). [CNN, 2/16/2007]

Most of the defendants are found guilty at a trial of dozens of US and Italian officials over the rendition of Islamist radical Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr (a.k.a. Abu Omar—see Noon February 17, 2003). Twenty-three US officials are convicted, the most high-profile being former CIA officers Robert Seldon Lady and Sabrina de Sousa, as well as Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Romano. [Reuters, 11/4/2009] Lady gets the heaviest sentence, eight years, whereas de Sousa, Romano, and the other Americans—Monica Adler, Gregory Asherleigh, Lorenza Carrera, Drew Channing, John Duffin, Vincent Faldo, Raymond Harbaough, James Harbison, Ben Amar Harty, Cynthia Logan, George Purvis, Pilar Rueda, Joseph Sofin,
Michalis Vasiluou, Eliana Castaldo, Victor Castellano, John Gurley, Brenda Ibanez, Anne Lidia Jenkins, and James Kirkland—get five years. [Reuters, 11/4/2009; International Commission of Jurists, 11/24/2009 ] Judge Oscar Magi finds three US officials not guilty as they have diplomatic immunity. They are the CIA’s former Rome station chief Jeff Castelli, whose “brainchild” the abduction was (see Before February 17, 2003), former first secretary at the US embassy in Rome Ralph Russomando, and former second secretary Betnie Medero. Prosecutor Armando Spataro says he may appeal the decision to grant them diplomatic immunity. Five agents of the Italian military intelligence service SISMI are also not convicted. The officials, including former SISMI head Nicolo Pollari, get off because evidence against them is suppressed on state secrecy grounds (see March 2009). However, two junior SISMI agents are convicted and sentenced to three years in prison as accomplices. [Reuters, 11/4/2009]

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